Osprey accident could hurt Amarillo

Published: Tuesday, December 12, 2000

Avalanche-Journal

Plans for the start of full-scale production of the MV-22 Osprey at the Amarillo Bell Helicopter Textron Tiltrotor Assembly Center suffered a setback when the Marine Corps grounded all of the aircraft following a crash in North Carolina that killed four Marines and raised new doubts about the future of the tilt-rotor plane.

Less than two weeks ago, the Marine Corps said that problems the director of operational test and evaluation said made the V-22 Osprey unreliable have been fixed, and that full production of the aircraft should begin.

The Osprey crash Monday night, in a forested area near Jacksonville, N.C., killed all four Marines aboard. It was the second fatal Osprey accident this year. In April an Osprey crashed while attempting to land at an airport in Arizona, killing all 19 Marines aboard. Human error was blamed for that accident.

"This program is very, very important to the Marine Corps, to me and I think to the nation, and we're going to work very hard to find out what happened," said Lt. Gen. Fred McCorkle, head of Marine aviation. He spoke at a Pentagon news conference in which he expressed sympathy for the families of the four crash victims.

"I don't think this will be a show-stopper," he said, referring to the possibility of the program being canceled.

In a Dec. 1 announcement, the Marines said 118 improvements have been made to address concerns raised during testing. The testing report from the director of operational test and evaluation had said the aircraft was operationally effective, but not suitable because of concerns over reliability, maintainability and availability.

If the aircraft is declared ready for full-rate production, it could boost employment at the Amarillo Bell Helicopter Textron Tiltrotor Assembly Center to about 1,200 over the next few years.